Are you wasting your AdWords budget on in-app ads?
successfulsoftware.net
successfulsoftware.net
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722057?hl=en
edit: I guess the contentious point here is why they enable non-specific in-app ads by default.
So I don't have a problem with "101" lever concepts getting upvoted and discussed here. (But, you know, have an upvote!)
Despite running ads in a style that worked well on other ad networks, using highly specific terms to target the site's niche audience, for a site that generally gets excellent engagement once people find it, there was literally 0% engagement from GDN visitors. Not a single person so much as visited a second page, according to Google's own statistics.
It turned out that most of the ads were being shown on pages that seemed to have little if any obvious connection to any of the targeting terms. The top referrer even had the small print, low contrast, keyword spam at the top of the page (Viagra, payday loans, that kind of stuff) that I thought everyone gave up on years ago. And Google had the audacity to charge us for that traffic.
Our solution is simple: We no longer have an AdWords budget, and we've cancelled all our other Google-related to-do items in favour of various other on-line channels.
There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get.
Also I guess most of the websites with good quality content charge advertisers direct, rather than getting chump change from Google Display ads.
Sure, I can understand one or two getting through. But just looking down the top referrers from Google's own stats, almost none of them appeared to be related to the chosen target terms in this case.
There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get.
Yes, GDN is "old school" advertising, but that doesn't explain a total lack of engagement from the visitors. Other on-line advertising channels have been used to promote the same site, including multiple variants of display advertising using almost exactly the same ad styles and targeting strategies. Some seem to be more successful than others after the first few experiments, but all of them consistently achieve fair to very good engagement levels.
I almost have to think that something went wrong here, because I don't understand how Google can still be in business if our experience is typical of the results they can offer. Perhaps it works better for sites with less specific audiences or for big name brands. Still, if that is the best Google can do for a niche site with very targeted terms, it has literally no value as an advertising channel for us.
I have had much better results with Search ads.
Given the obvious keyword spam I mentioned on one of the top referring sites, that wouldn't surprise me at all. But again, if Google are that bad at dealing with fraudulent clicks, we're going to make that their problem rather than ours!
I have had much better results with Search ads.
Google search ads are actually our second worst-performing experiment by some way as far as on-line channels go. However, in fairness to Google, we already rank on the first page for almost all the targeted terms in our current strategy anyway, so it is entirely possible that any keywords generic enough to be useful on top of that are also broad enough to be the wrong scale for our needs.
A more interesting contrast for us is the results from advertising say via Facebook (targeting similar interests/demographics) or via individual ads we've placed directly with a few established sites relevant to our target audience. Those channels should be directly comparable to GDN, yet all of them have consistently performed vastly better.
Another common mistake I have seen is to advertise expensive English-language products to people not searching in English in poor countries.
It is so easy to make mistakes in AdWords.
I've just noticed that Google e-mailed us with a phone number we could call for "free support and advice from an AdWords expert". Might be good for a laugh (or a refund, not that we let them near very much money anyway).
1) Cash in on the massive volume of bad mobile app ads as long as possible 2) Roll out "Display Select" and leave the mobile app traffic to DoubleClick. 3) How do they make up for the loss in revenue? "Search with Display Select" is the default selection now. Look closely, display bids are no longer set by you, but by Google. 4) Search advertisers pour in to the Display network, driving up bids and making up for the loss of the bad traffic.
I have had good results at scale with the Display Network many years ago. There is just so much inventory now and it is not particularly cheap (presuming real, engaged users.)
You can opt out of the in-app ads completely by adding "adsenseformobileapps.com" to the excluded domains.